About two months ago, I was at a major tech conference where search got mentioned as “boring.” Sigh. Search — which makes up half of all online ad spend in the United States — is far from boring. And search marketers, now’s your chance to prove it.

This is the last week to enter the Search Engine Land Awards, where we will recognize the best in search marketing over the past year.

Search marketing is the marketing activity that, more than any other, delivers that oft-sought “right message at the right time.” The marketing activity that funds Google’s auto-driving cars and other “moonshots.” The workhorse that makes so many businesses viable in the internet age.

So are you tired of Hollywood portraying SEO as a bunch of spammers? Are you tired of people assuming that’s what SEO is because of spam they see, which they take as representative of SEO? Are you tired of fighting to win a paid search budget, then having to keep fighting to preserve that budget in the face of the new “cool” stuff like social and video? Are you tired of SEM campaigns being overlooked both for their creativity and ROI?

Then step up! Enter the Search Engine Land Awards — the Landys — and help celebrate the great successes in search marketing and show the marketing world and beyond that search marketing deserves far more recognition than it gets.

On a personal note, I’ve long wanted to do these awards for search marketing. Back early in my career, we ran awards to recognize the emerging search engines at the time. Those awards were important in helping players like Google gain recognition. But they were extremely time-consuming to do right, much less expand beyond search engines and into search marketing campaigns.

This year, we felt Search Engine Land was finally staffed up enough to take on this new challenge in addition to our main mission of covering search marketing. And we’re not the only search awards out there. If you’re in the US, there’s also the US Search Awards. If you’re in the the UK, there’s the UK Search Awards and the Drum Search Awards. I think search marketers should consider those as well as ours, which are open to global entries.

Still, I think our awards will be special. Search Engine Land is the leading publication in the search marketing space, and our awards are backed by that reputation. The awards are also not for-profit. There’s a modest entry fee that helps cover some of the basic costs involved. But anything earned beyond that goes to two charities: BeTheMatch.org and CODE.org. Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land, is also guaranteeing at least $5,000 will go to them.

You’ve got this week to enter, with 12 different categories and special consideration for SMBs versus large enterprise companies. We want your entries, want your stories, and we look forward to celebrating the successes out there. Enter the Search Engine Land Awards now!

]]>http://searchengineland.com/last-call-search-engine-land-awards-226117/feed0Do Some Search Marketers Really Believe They Make The World Worse?http://searchengineland.com/do-some-search-marketers-really-believe-they-make-the-world-worse-225769
http://searchengineland.com/do-some-search-marketers-really-believe-they-make-the-world-worse-225769#commentsWed, 22 Jul 2015 13:00:54 +0000http://searchengineland.com/?p=225769Survey finds high rate of those in SEM believe they're harmful to the world. Or does it? Digging deeper raises questions.

A new survey shows that those employed in search marketing are much more likely than those in other occupations to say their work makes the world a worse place. Ouch. But the percentage saying this is small, and there are several questions about how reliable the survey is.

The data is from PayScale, a company that crowdsources compensation information. The company looked at survey data it gathered from 2.7 million respondents from June 2013 to June 2015 to create a “Most & Least Meaningful Jobs” report.

Self-Hating SEMs?

A question on the survey asks, “Does your work make the world a better place?” As you might expect, those in occupations like education, medicine, the military or the clergy answered affirmatively at high rates, more than 80% or more agreeing they make the world better in some way.

One option to answering the question was to pick “My job makes the world a worse place.” Fast food workers picked this more than any other occupation, 25% in all. “Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Strategist” had the fourth highest rate, 18% — tied with Merchandise Planning Manager, Valet and Paralegal/Legal Assistant.

If the survey is to be believed, nearly one-fifth of those involved in search marketing feel they make the world worse. Again, ouch!

SEO’s Reputation Problem

There’s no question that search marketing, especially search engine optimization, has a terrible reputation in some quarters, based on the spam activity that happens: people sending those absurd link requests, dropping crappy links into blog comments and elsewhere, or using tools to generate thousands of pages of garbage in hopes that one might somehow rank well.

But that activity, I’d say, is not representative of the vast majority of those who consider themselves professional SEOs, as opposed to professional spammers. There’s a big difference between the two, and I’d recommend reading my Why People Hate SEO story from two years ago for a still-valid overview of the issues here and more background.

Suffice it to say, if search engine optimization were making the world a worse place, Google wouldn’t be currently hiring an SEO. Done right, SEO is a helpful activity. So is SEM, the act of doing paid search advertising. So is search marketing, the combination of the two.

Behind The Survey

So what’s up with SEMs hating themselves? Time to trot out the qualifications. For one, PayScale didn’t tell us how many people in search marketing answered this question (We did ask). We do know it’s a high enough number that PayScale didn’t qualify the stat as being somehow statistically insignificant. But whether 100 or 100,000 people answered, we don’t know.

It’s also unclear what a “Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Strategist” is. PayScale pointed us to this definition here:

Search engine marketing (SEM) specialists work in a variety of settings, ranging from smaller websites to large firms. Job duties include planning strategies and goals for optimization results, conducting keyword research, and producing marketing campaigns. They are also in charge of auditing content and content delivery, generating detailed reports, and keeping up to date with the latest trends and concepts in search engine marketing. SEM specialists’ work requires excellent communication skills, as they must regularly communicate with other departments about potential improvements and techniques. Although individuals in this position report to management, the ability to work independently is also needed. In some large firms or websites, the SEM specialist may be required to working with a team of other marketing specialists.

That could be someone who does SEO. That could be someone who does SEM/paid search. It could be someone who does both.

But PayScale also has 10 — yes, 10 — different occupation titles specifically relating to SEO, which you can look up here (just type SEO into the search box to see them appear). In addition, there are seven titles relating to SEM.

Overall, PayScale has nearly 20 different occupations that relate to search marketing. Only one of these made the “makes the world worse” list. The others were clearly more positive (since they aren’t on the list), and perhaps much more so. Despite this, one title will likely get used to represent the entire industry.

Behind The Question

Let’s also take a closer look at the particular question. Again, PayScale said people were asked, “Does your work make the world a better place?” Here’s the full breakdown for the SEM strategist title:

Very much = 9%

Yes = 9%

A little = 36%

No = 27%

My job may make the world a worse place = 18%

Most — 54%, the total of the first three items — were positive about their work. Those saying “No” didn’t think they made the world better, but they also didn’t think they made it worse. A minority — that 18% figure — thought they made things worse.

Remember again, this is the answer to only one of 17 job titles relating to search marketing, answered by an unknown number of people, which may include people who aren’t even search marketers but perhaps spammers.

Overall, take these results with a big grain of salt. There are multiple reasons to doubt whether the stat holds up. In fact, we debated even covering this at all. In the end, we decided that the figure would likely get remarked upon elsewhere, so it was important to examine some of the methodology and problems behind the results.

That said, there’s no doubt that as explained, spamming has long tainted search marketing, and SEO in particular, as unsavory. Worse, despite search marketing being 50% of online ad spend in the US, those involved with search marketing can still find themselves fighting battles to prove their worth or to not seem “boring” compared to social media and video marketing.

Having covered the search marketing space for nearly 20 years now, I know that there are search marketers — SEOs and SEMs alike — doing great work. It’s terrible that the space gets most associated with spam and not with its wonderful and helpful successes.

That’s one reason we launched the Search Engine Land Awards this year. We want to highlight the great work that’s going on. You’ve still got to the end of this month to enter. So please, those of you doing great stuff in search, do enter. You’re overdue to be celebrated rather than underappreciated or represented by spam.

]]>http://searchengineland.com/do-some-search-marketers-really-believe-they-make-the-world-worse-225769/feed0Russian Parliament Approves “Right To Be Forgotten” In Search Engineshttp://searchengineland.com/russia-right-to-forget-224466
http://searchengineland.com/russia-right-to-forget-224466#commentsFri, 03 Jul 2015 18:43:42 +0000http://searchengineland.com/?p=224466If signed by President Vladimir Putin, law goes into effect in 2016, allows for broader removals than with the EU's similar law.

The Russian parliament has approved a broad “Right To Be Forgotten” law that allows anyone to request removal of information from search engines that’s deemed outdated, irrelevant or untrustworthy. If signed by President Vladimir Putin, it will be become law next year.

The law has been criticized as being too sweeping compared the the EU’s Right To Be Forgotten, which itself has come under criticism. The Russian law doesn’t require that actual links be identified for removal, simply that people can object to content in general and ask search engines to somehow remove all of it. The law also only removes links in search engines, not from hosting websites.

Deutsche Welle explains that the law requires the removal of content deemed “untrustworthy” or that is “in violation of the law” or that is “no longer relevant.” A provision that potentially meant any information older than three years, even if accurate, was dropped. RT explains some situations, also. Reuters also has coverage, and Techmeme is collecting stories.

Russia’s biggest search engine, Yandex, had previously objected to the law. Despite changes, Yandex is quoted by AFP as still having major issues:

“Our attempts to introduce some crucial amendments to this bill have unfortunately been unsuccessful,” Yandex said in a statement.

“Our point has always been that a search engine cannot take on the role of a regulatory body and act as a court or law enforcement agency,” it said.

“We believe that information control should not limit access to information that serves the public interest. The private interest and the public interest should exist in balance,” the firm said.

Google told us it has no comment about the move. If signed, the law takes effect on January 1, 2016. It’s not clear if the law demands removal worldwide for all people or only within Russia’s borders. For more about the issues involved with the former, see our previous story:

]]>http://searchengineland.com/russia-right-to-forget-224466/feed0Microsoft Signs 10-Year Deal For AOL To Use Bing’s Ads & Listingshttp://searchengineland.com/microsoft-signs-10-year-deal-for-aol-to-use-bings-ads-listings-224190
http://searchengineland.com/microsoft-signs-10-year-deal-for-aol-to-use-bings-ads-listings-224190#commentsMon, 29 Jun 2015 22:06:33 +0000http://searchengineland.com/?p=224190Google loses deal it held since 2002, but AOL matters far less than it once did.

At AOL Search, Google is out, Bing is in. Microsoft and AOL have signed a new 10-year agreement for Bing to provide search listings and ads to AOL as of January 1, 2016.

When Google first won the AOL deal back in 2002, it was a huge deal for that company. Google was still up-and-coming; AOL had substantial search traffic. Google managed to renew the deal every time it came up since, such as in 2010. But no more.

That’s no great loss for Google, however. AOL has only about 1% of the search traffic in the US, versus Google’s 65%. Google will likely not notice the loss. Potentially, the company didn’t even fight for or hard to renew the deal. The loss even helps Google argue that it’s not as completely dominant in search as it’s often criticized for.

It’s still a great win for Bing. It recently passed the 20% share mark in the US, and the AOL deal will give it a further nudge forward.

Also as part of today’s news, Microsoft is giving up its display ad sales business to AOL and says that Bing generates enough revenue to operate on a standalone basis, if it wanted. For more both of those topics, see our stories at Marketing Land below:

Google offers a dedicated Google Video search designed to bring back videos from across the web, in addition to its own YouTube service. However, something seems seriously wrong with Google Video. Some searches promising to lead people to video content fail to actually do so.

In this case, I searched for “Apple” on Google, then selected “More” and then used the “Videos” option. The results are the same as if I went to Google Videos directly. Both the second and third listings promise that there’s some video content on these pages. But neitherpage has videos on them.

Here’s another example, this time with “Google” as the search term:

As with the Apple examples, neither of the two istings highlighted have videos on their pages.

The first example from Google, for Google Inbox, does have a “Watch the video” link on the page. When clicked, that will cause an actual video to load within the page. But for the rest, getting to videos from the pages is difficult to impossible.

For example, the second Google exmple — for Project Tango — makes the video available only if you figure out that clicking in the “For Developers” box will make a box appear at the top of the page that in turn requires another click to play the video:

That’s a lot of work and hunting for someone who thought clicking on a listing at Google would take them directly to where they would watch a video immediately play. I only figured out the video was there among all the other content by going to the HTML source code.

With the Apple pages. I simple can’t find any way to trigger videos at all. There are references to video content in the source code, but these references don’t appear to be rending the video into the pages in any way. Yet, this seems enough for Google to list videos as somehow being in these pages.

We’re checking with Google for comment about this.

Postscript: Google pointed out that on one of the Apple pages, there is indeed a video. It’s of an Apple Watch face moving. IE, not a big video on the page but a small animation. Google also agreed that there’s likely stuff that it could do when listing videos for search results but said it had no immediate plans to announce.

In other words, Google doesn’t think this is that big of a deal. I disagree. If you’re going to have a video search engine, people actually expect that when they click on a video listing, they should get a video, not an opportunity to search again for it.

]]>http://searchengineland.com/google-sending-searchers-to-nonexistent-videos-223747/feed0Google Will Allow People To Block “Revenge Porn” From Search Resultshttp://searchengineland.com/google-block-revenge-porn-223641
http://searchengineland.com/google-block-revenge-porn-223641#commentsFri, 19 Jun 2015 17:37:21 +0000http://searchengineland.com/?p=223641Google has announced that in the coming weeks, it will launch a system allowing people to request nude and explicit images of themselves posted without consent from appearing in Google’s search results. This move will help with the “revenge porn” issue, where upset partners post images to degrade someone they were with. It’s an issue that’s especially […]

Google has announced that in the coming weeks, it will launch a system allowing people to request nude and explicit images of themselves posted without consent from appearing in Google’s search results.

This move will help with the “revenge porn” issue, where upset partners post images to degrade someone they were with. It’s an issue that’s especially likely to be done to women.

We’ve heard many troubling stories of “revenge porn”: an ex-partner seeking to publicly humiliate a person by posting private images of them, or hackers stealing and distributing images from victims’ accounts. Some images even end up on “sextortion” sites that force people to pay to have their images removed.

Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web. But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims—predominantly women. So going forward, we’ll honor requests from people to remove nude or sexually explicit images shared without their consent from Google Search results.

This is a narrow and limited policy, similar to how we treat removal requests for other highly sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers and signatures, that may surface in our search results.

Google said that it’s aware the new policy won’t stop the practice but hopes it will help. I think that’s likely the case. If this material can’t be found in Google, it becomes largely invisible to the world. It also might serve as a deterrent from others to try. Google promised that a form will appear for requests in the coming weeks.

Google makes the move ahead of John Oliver having a segment airing this Sunday about the revenge porn problem on Last Week Tonight. USA Today has more about that, as well as further comments on the move. It’s not clear if Google was going to be featured in that report. But the timing of today’s announcement suggests a proactive move to counter potential coming criticism.

]]>Looking for the latest results from Google for the 2016 FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament? On Android, you’ll get a special section at the top of the search page. But on iOS and desktop, Google has no such special feature. That’s in contrast to how things worked for the 2014 FIFA Men’s World Cup.

On Friday, we reported how Google was inconsistently showing match results. Some searching for “world cup” would get them; others wouldn’t. Now the mystery is solved. Google said it only shows these special results on Android.

You can see an example of the difference below. On the left is what you get when you search for “world cup” on iOS, even when using Chrome. In response, you get standard “blue links” but no results. On the right, a search on Android, where the search page is topped with the latest results, with the ability to interactively click into them for more information:

For the FIFA Men’s World Cup in 2014, Google had a similar box that appeared as with the women’s tournament. The difference is that unlike with the women’s tournament, this appeared on desktop and iOS in addition to Android.

Google gave no explanation for why iOS and desktop aren’t getting the special results. The company simply confirmed this is Android-only and noted that its inline with the rich results that it is providing for 170 soccer / football leagues in 70 countries.

Google added that it does hope to expand this type of format to other platforms but is starting with Android for now. I’m still confused over this, since for the men’s tournament, this type of format worked across several platforms.

Google also noted that for a search on something like “nba final,” the rich experience only happens on Android. IE, it’s not some specific omission for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. But if you search for just “nba,” you will still get a special schedule and standings box even on iOS and desktop.

]]>http://searchengineland.com/google-fifa-women-android-only-223209/feed0For FIFA Women’s World Cup, Google Gives Women Less Space Than Menhttp://searchengineland.com/for-fifa-womens-world-cup-google-gives-women-less-space-than-men-223125
http://searchengineland.com/for-fifa-womens-world-cup-google-gives-women-less-space-than-men-223125#commentsFri, 12 Jun 2015 21:10:37 +0000http://searchengineland.com/?p=223125For the men's tournament, Google was quick with special boxes to highlight results. For the women's tournament, the boxes are often missing.

]]>It’s pretty expected at this point. If there’s a major sporting event, you can search for it by name on Google and get a special box with scores at the top of the search results. That’s what happened for the FIFA Men’s World Cup in 2014. But for the FIFA Women’s World Cup happening now, Google been poor in providing parity.

In 2014, a search for “world cup” when the men’s tournament happened generated special result boxes like this:

But for the women’s tournament happening now, no such special treatment is happening for me on desktop.

Other Search Engine Land staffers also report that special results are lacking on desktop.

On mobile, I also don’t get anything special. This matches up with what some on Twitter havereported:

While most attention has been on the European Union wanting to impose its censorship demands on Google globally, the same thing has been happening in Canada. This week, Google lost an appeal and may have to censor content on sites outside Google Canada.

Here’s the backstory. A Canadian company named Equustek Solutions won a trademark infringement case against another company called Datalink Technologies Gateways. Equustek then wanted Google to remove links to Datalink. Google did so, but only for those using the Google Canada site.

Back to court. Last June, a Canadian judge in British Columbia ordered that Google remove Datalink from its search results. All of them, worldwide. Google appealed; now it has lost that appeal.

The Globe And Mail has more information on the ruling, and there’s even more via Techmeme. Google, cited in the report, hasn’t decided if it will appeal further. I suspect that’s likely. But what’s key about this case is that it’s further along than the situation in France, which just happened today.

]]>http://searchengineland.com/canadian-appeals-court-orders-google-to-censor-globally-223083/feed0[WATCH] Google’s Amazing Location-Aware Search Finds Answers About Nearby Placeshttp://searchengineland.com/google-amazing-location-aware-search-222823
http://searchengineland.com/google-amazing-location-aware-search-222823#commentsWed, 10 Jun 2015 08:12:18 +0000http://searchengineland.com/?p=222823Now you can ask Google to give you information about landmarks, buildings and businesses around you without ever having to actually use their names.

How tall is that tower in front of you? What’s the name of a river you’re near? What time does a store you’re looking at close? Google’s new “location-aware” search can answer questions like these, even if you yourself don’t know the exact name of something you’re near.

Google demonstrated the feature at our SMX Paris search marketing event yesterday. It’s relatively new, having been released several weeks ago both for Android and for those using the Google Search App on iOS. But Google never made a formal announcement about it, so few have known you can do this type of searching, until now.

Behshad Behzadi, Director of Conversational Search for Google, showed how it worked during an afternoon talk he gave on the future of search. “Location-Aware Search” is my name for the feature, since Behzadi told me Google itself hasn’t named it.

I captured several examples he showed on video, which you can watch below.

“How Tall Is This?”

Behzadi showed two promotional videos each about one minute long that have people demonstrating the feature. In the first, you see a man asking in front of a church. He asks, “What’s the name of this church.” Google, knowing where he’s at geographically, makes the right guess about what he’s asking about and reports the name.

Similarly, the video shows him in front of a restaurant that’s closed. “When does this restaurant open,” he says, without ever naming the location. He gets back the operating hours. Later, standing in front of San Francisco’s Coit Tower, he asks simply “How tall is this” without naming the tower. He’s given the height.

“How Deep Is This Lake?”

In the second promotional video, a woman asks for the name of a park she’s in, how deep a lake is that she’s near and the name of a stream that she sees.

“How Long Is This River?”

Behzadi himself demonstrated the feature. In one example, from inside the conference center, he asked “how long is this river?” Google could tell that he was near the Seine and reported back the length of it:

“Call This Conference Center”

In another example, he asked: “call this conference center.” Google figured out the name of the conference center he was in and placed the call, to the great amusement of the audience:

I’ve tested the feature myself and seen it work. For example, standing near the Eiffel Tower, I asked “how tall is it” and got back the answer.

How To Use Location-Aware Search

Again, this feature is live now and has been for several weeks. Google just never publicized it, so few until now have even known they could try it. But if you have Android and speak your search to Google through the integrated search box, it should work for you. The same is true if you have the Google Search App for iOS. Speaking searches to Chrome also seem to enable it, even if you’re using the iPhone.